


The Best Defense

by suse



Series: AELDWS 2019 [4]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Community: inceptiversary, M/M, Paranoia, Plot Twists, This one is a bit dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 21:29:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20052826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suse/pseuds/suse
Summary: Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they’re not out to get you.





	The Best Defense

It’s three a.m. and the street is still wet from the rain. I’m walking home. It’s later than I thought; my colleagues gone, nothing or nobody preventing me from burying myself in research and only coming out of my daze when it's done. 

I like my work. It’s diverse, with just enough danger to hold my interest. I’m good at what i do - the best, some would say. But lately, I’ve started feeling like I should watch my back. I’m not beloved by all, not by a long shot. There are people who want me gone. Gone as in eliminated, disposed of, dead. People are threatened by me. Part of my role in a team entails keeping a close eye on every person in it. Not everyone can appreciate that.

My footsteps echo through the empty road. Or - is that a second set of footsteps? Another person, trying to blend into my own loud disruption of the nightly quiet? 

Quiet, I tell my thoughts. Quiet. There’s no need to be paranoid. Just keep on walking, pace unchanged, posture relaxed. Just keep on. Nobody is following me. Eames is not following me. 

I turn a corner and wait, gun drawn. All sounds slowly silence. 

Do I hear a raspy intake of breath? 

It can’t be him. 

What if it is? 

Eames is stronger. More used to fighting dirty. A brawler pur sang, but he knows how to finish someone as well. I’ve seen it often enough, both here and under. Under, he’s smooth as a snake, deadly as one. I would never see it coming. 

Almost there. The last stretch to my room is a long lane, buildings vacant. Nobody here to hear me. 

I arrive at my motel and unbolt my crappy lock, hands shaking. 

Eames is just where I left him, gagged and cuffed to the radiator. The wound on his temple seems to have stopped bleeding. 

He’s staring right at me, eyes black and violent. 

I exhale slowly, my nerves finally settling. "Good, you're still here. Let’s get started, shall we?”

**Author's Note:**

> Round 4  
Prompt: Paranoid  
Genre: Anadiplosis (a rhetorical device in which a writer or speaker uses a word near the end of the clause and then repeats that word to begin the next clause; used to bring attention to a specific thing or concept.  
Word count: up to 350 words
> 
> This was my last week participating. I had so much fun! Thanks to everyone involved for organizing, participating, voting and sending comments, I had the best time!


End file.
